"You will go down to Battersea, James," he told the chauffeur, "and fetch me afterwards from the club." A queer feeling caught at her heart as the car glided off and left him standing there, bareheaded. It was the first time--she felt something like the snap of a chain in her heart--the first time in all these years! Yet she never for a moment deceived herself. The tears which stood in her eyes, the pain in her heart, were for him. CHAPTER XV The Duchess, a few mornings later, leaned back in her car and watched the perilous progress of her footman, dodging in and out of the traffic in the widest part of Piccadilly. He returned presently in safety, escorting the object of his quest. The Duchess pointed to the seat by her side. "Can I take you or drop you anywhere?" she asked. "Please don't look as though you had been taken into custody. I saw you in the distance, walking aimlessly along, and I really wanted to talk to you." David for a moment indulged in the remains of what was almost a boyish resentment. "I have to go to the Savoy," he explained, "and I was rather intending to walk across St. James's Park." "You can walk after your lunch," she insisted. "If you walk before, it gives you too much of an appetite,--afterwards, it helps your digestion, so get in with me, and I will drive you to the Savoy." He took his place by her side with a distinct air of resignation. The Duchess laughed at him. "You are a very silly person to dislike other people so," she admonished. "If you begin to give way to misanthropy at your time of life, you will be a withered up old stick whom no one will want to be decent to, except to get money out of, before you're fifty. Don't you know that the society of human beings is good for you?" "There isn't a medicine in the world one can't take too much of," David ventured, smiling in spite of himself. "To the Savoy, John," his mistress directed. "Tell Miles to drive slowly. To abandon abstruse discussions," she continued, leaning back, "have you regarded my warning?" "Which one?" he demanded. "I mean with reference to my brother. I happen to have come across him once or twice, during the last few days. On Wednesday he was in the most buoyant spirits--for him. He had the air of a man who has accomplished some great feat. If you only knew how amusing Reginald is at such times! His manner isn't in the least different, but you know perfectly well that he is thinking himself one of the most brilliant creatures ever born. There is a note of the finest and most delicate condescension in the way he speaks. I am perfectly certain that if he had happened to come across the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Wednesday, he would have discussed finance with him in a patronising fashion, and probably offered him a few hints as to how to reduce the National Debt." "On Wednesday this was," David murmured.